With an intergalactic cast of thousands, Koji Masunari's colorfully explosive debut feature sets a new high for visual spectacle and sheer inventiveness of character design - in what has to be one of the most gleefully surreal depictions of alien life forms ever portrayed in cinema. It seems like just another lazy summer is in store for Amane and her older cousin Natsuki. Lolling about the Japanese countryside, the days are blithe and boundless. But...

In the Land of the Rising Sun, love and relationships are in danger. A quarter of all Japanese people aged 30 to 40 are virgins and 50% of the population admits to not having sex regularly. Unsurprisingly, this has led to birth rates plummeting, and 30% of Japan's population could disappear by 2060. What are the reasons for this detachment from the world of love and sex? Tough jobs, stress, and money problems don't exactly provide the ideal environment...

Although Butoh is often viewed as Japan's equivalent of modern dance, in actuality it has little to do with the rational principles of modernism. Butoh is a theater of improvisation which places the personal experiences of the dancer on center-stage. The dancer is used as a medium to his or her inner life, but not for the portrayal of day to day existence. A Dionysian dance of nudity, eroticism, and sexuality, Butoh's scale of expression ranges from...

Ittetsu Nemoto, a former punk-turned-Buddhist priest in Japan, has made a career out of helping suicidal people find reasons to live. But this work has come increasingly at the cost of his own family and health, as he refuses to draw lines between those he counsels and himself.

In this meticulously researched documentary, filmmaker Mark Hall traces the origins of sushi in Japan to its status today as a cuisine that has spawned a lucrative worldwide industry. This explosion in demand for sushi over the past 30 years has brought with it problems of its own, as fish stocks have steadily depleted, threatening the balance of the ocean's ecosystems. Through extensive interviews with prominent industry representatives and environmental...

"I wish I was a god with a thousand arms, each one with a camera." So says Nobuyoshi Araki, who with more than 350 photo books stakes the claim as the most published photographer in the world. While his work spans varied subjects, his erotic work is what made his reputation, one that is infamous as well as notorious. Provoking the sexual prudery of Japan, his work has shaped an entire culture and made him the country's face of sexual liberation. Filmmakers...

A portrait of the internationally acclaimed Japanese architect who employs Buddhist ideas in a symbiosis of oriental forms and western modernism to achieve an intercultural architecture. This documentary follows him to his major accomplishments in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nara, Osaka, Berlin, Paris, Chicago and New York . Kurokawa died in 2007.

In the lush tradition of the glorious films of Merchant and Ivory, comes the true story of Leonie Gilmour (Emily Mortimer), who crossed continents, wars and cultures, embodied with courage and passion in search of art and freedom. An independent young woman frustrated by turn-of-the century gender norms, Gilmour finds work as an editor for the famous Japanese poet, Yone Noguchi (Shido Nakamura). Their relationship grows and becomes romantic, but Noguchi...

On December 9, 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army laid siege to the Chinese capital of Nanking, beginning a reign of terror that killed as many as 300,000 civilians, an infamous tragedy now referred to as the Rape of Nanking. The first big-budget fiction film by the Chinese to deal with this seminal event in their modern history, City of life and death is a visceral, heartbreaking portrait of life during wartime, and an unforgettable masterpiece of...

March 11, 2011: A huge tsunami triggered by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake hits Japan, crippling the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, releasing radiation, and turning the residents of Futaba into "nuclear refugees." The devastation experienced by the town - dead livestock left to rot, crops abandoned, homes and businesses destroyed - was infinitely worse than anything reported by the newspapers. A year later, many refugees are still unable to return...